Speaking at the annual conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Houston on Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder roundly criticized Texas for the voter ID law that Gov. Rick Perry signed last year in order to combat voter fraud. The U.S. Department of Justice is currently suing Texas over the law — the federal trial is scheduled to end Friday, but we probably won’t get the ruling until next month.

The NAACP is mounting their own campaign to assail state voter ID laws across the country, and the attorney general went on and on in his speech to the organization, detailing the many and abhorrent ways in which asking an individual to present a government-issued form of photo identification amounts to the very basest discrimination.

Holder said many voters would have to travel “great distances” to get a government-issued photo ID and that some would “struggle” to pay for the requisite paperwork.

“We call these poll taxes,” Holder said. …

“I don’t know what will happen as this case moves forward,” Holder said. “But I can assure you that the Justice Department’s efforts to uphold and enforce voting rights will remain aggressive.”

He also said the agency found the law “would be harmful to minority voters.”

“We will not allow political pretext to disenfranchise American citizens of their most precious rights.”

Allright, why is the mainstream media up in arms when Rep. Allen West uses the term ‘economic slavery’ to describe the culture of dependency created through the federal government’s overzealous entitlement spending, but when the sitting attorney general accuses states of actively trying to exclude minorities with laws harkening back to the days of poll taxes, it’s totally fine? Will anyone in the media call it hyperbolic, inflammatory, or perhaps just a little unfair? That Texas is maybe just the tiniest bit justified in trying to prevent the very real problem of corruption and voter fraud? I won’t hold my breath. (The NAACP, by the way, required media to show two forms of ID to enter the event — using Holder’s logic, is the NAACP trying to “disenfranchise” the media?)

So, the Justice Department is not going to allow ‘political pretext to disenfranchise American citizens,’ but they refuse to do anything productive about letting political pretext enfranchise illegal immigrants, the deceased, the nonexistent, people’s pets, and etcetera. Sweet, got it.